Half of motorists say they’re paying too much for insurance

Half of drivers believe they’re paying too much for insurance given how little they’ve been driving since the pandemic, a new survey has revealed.

A survey of 2,100 motorists by RAC Pay by Mile Insurance has not only found that many people believe they’re paying too much, but that 50 per cent are unable to switch to a cheaper policy without getting charged.

RAC head of insurance development Laura Truman said: “While it remains to be seen how our driving habits change as a result of the pandemic, it seems fair to presume that many of us won’t go back to driving the sort of miles we used to – especially if a degree of home-working becomes the norm. But even without the impact of Covid-19, it’s clear the number of cars covering fewer than 6,000 miles a year has been going up in recent years.

“This shift is clearly prompting drivers to question whether the cost of their car insurance is reasonable. This might partly be because in so many cases motorists are forced to lock themselves into annual insurance contracts, the price of which is partly determined by the policyholder’s estimate of how many miles they’ll cover in a year. This is something we know drivers found difficult to estimate before the pandemic but considering all the uncertainty surrounding people’s future travel needs it must now be even harder.”

A quarter of people expect to drive less in the future than they did prior to the pandemic, meaning that the issue could only get worse.

Government data taken from MOT tests also suggests a growing trend towards drivers doing fewer miles, with the number of cars covering under 6,000 miles between annual MOTs rising by six per cent a year between 2017 and 2020. However, in the 12 months to February 2021, this rose to 35 per cent compared with the same period in 2020.

The RAC also found that many drivers are likely to be paying more for their insurance cover than they need to, with 51 per cent saying that they have driven fewer miles than they told their insurance when they took out the policy.